


try imagining a place

by soaringrachel



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Clint Barton's Farm, Friendship, Gen, Sad, Trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-20
Updated: 2018-11-20
Packaged: 2019-08-26 19:04:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16687228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soaringrachel/pseuds/soaringrachel
Summary: or, five times Nat was at Clint's farm and one time she was at Bucky's.





	try imagining a place

**i.**

They don’t talk much on the car ride.

The important questions have already been asked and answered--are you going to kill me, will you come with me, do you trust me. And she must be exhausted, because she hasn’t slept in the truck and he doesn’t think he did on any of the flights either. Apparently her trust doesn’t extend so far as sleeping around him.

He finds the turn-off where it always is; from here it’s more of a track than a road, and the truck bumps. She winces.

He grins. “A little real America for you,” he says.

“I guess I’ll get used to it,” she says. Her accent is as flat as his, as if she were born in Iowa too. For all he knows, she was. All he really knows about her is--not much, basically. She’s a kid, practically, ten years younger than Clint himself he’d guess, and he’d bet his new model of exploding arrow she hasn’t been getting enough to eat. She’s a skinny redhaired kid and she’s also one of the very few people in the world who are hands down, easy, more deadly than Clint himself.

So he’s bringing her home to where Laura is still sleeping, probably, somewhere even Phil would never be invited. Well, no one has ever called Clint smart.

He’d laid it out for her two nights ago in Prague, when she’d shown up in the cheap hotel room he was working out of and tried to pass him intel as a peace offering.

“I’d have to take this up the chain,” he said. “I’ve got a check-in with my handler in two hours and he’s gonna want to know where I got this.” Handler, not boss sarcastically or even just Phil, because it puts him on the same team as her, against the handlers; Clint did pay a little attention in his hostage psych training.

“I have a pickup in four hours,” he told her. “Do you wanna be on that plane with me?”

“No,” she’d said, “but I don’t want to be on mine either.” And on the strength of that, and the fact that he’d had her in sight and failed to take the shot twice now and she’d handed him her knife and gun when she popped in, he called Phil and said the Black Widow had compromised his pickup and he was gonna take some evasive maneuvers and see him in ten days. And then he packed up the Black Widow--Natasha, she told him her name was--and flew her, commercial, to Nashville, and then drove her home.

“So where are we going?” she says now, just as they’re about to reach the gate. Clint hesitates, then stops the truck.

“Okay,” he says, “here’s the deal: you can’t kill my wife.”

“You don’t have a wife,” Natasha says.

“Score one for Nick Fury,” Clint mutters.

He starts moving again, through the open gate and onto the property, up to the drive. It’s early morning--Laura is still sleeping, probably, or drinking a cup of tea before she starts work for the day. “I have a wife,” Clint says, as he parks the truck in front of the house. His turn to work from home, he supposes. “She’s nice. You’ll like her.”

Natasha smiles a little bit. “Is that what you’re gonna say to her about me?”

“No,” Clint says, hopping out of the car. “I’m gonna tell her the truth.”

 

**ii.**

It’s been six months since she came in and they keep making noises about trusting her, but Natasha’s still living in SHIELD housing that she’d put somewhere between “bunk” and “cell.” Lately, though, Clint’s been taking her to look at apartments. They’re standing in one--dormer windows, hardwood floors--when he steps out to take a call.

Natasha takes a few seconds to enjoy the sensation of being alone, unwatched, before she follows him. He’s already hanging up.

“Mission,” he says, seeing her.

“I can find my own way back?” Natasha offers, even though it’s more of a request--she hasn’t been allowed in the city alone yet, Clint’s promises of apartments notwithstanding.

She figures Clint will call another agent to pick her up instead, but he gives her a look she recognizes as considering. It’s a look he tends to turn on her a lot, actually.

“No,” he says, “come along on this one.” So Natasha does.

Clint drives fast and reckless, west out of Washington and then on backroads and switchbacks. Natasha recognizes someone trying to hit a balance between speed and stealth.

“This isn’t a SHIELD mission, is it?” she asks.

Clint laughs. “No,” he says. “This one’s actually important.” Natasha smirks.

She’s trusted Clint for months now--nearly a year, since she first realized he wasn’t going to kill her anytime soon. It’s still an odd feeling, being stone-cold sure a person isn’t going to hurt her; she can’t say it’s one she’s felt before. She isn’t sure she wants to get used to it, either. But trusting him is, if not comfortable, familiar. Liking him is newer, and she pokes at it like a bruise or a sore tooth, like an old injury.

It’s a couple hours later when they pull up in front of the hospital. Clint gives Natasha a pleading look--“Park the car?” he asks, and she nods.

“Laura?” she asks, and Clint barely has time to confirm before he’s running inside and Natasha’s sliding into the driver’s seat.

Natasha was surprised by Laura, although in retrospect anyone who would marry Clint would have to be the type of person who takes a Russian assassin in her living room in stride. She’d saved the worried questions for later, in private (Natasha eavesdropped), but she mostly showed Natasha where the tea was kept and helped her find game shows on the television. She let Natasha help with the translations she did for work, once she learned Natasha spoke Arabic, because, she said, there’s nothing worse than having nothing useful to do.

Natasha, at the time, had been wondering if she’d ever done anything useful. The chance to take a first pass at Arabic short fiction was a godsend.

It’s easy enough for Natasha to find out where Laura’s room is--obstetrics, it turns out. She’d suspected, but--well. The room’s door is open and Laura is sitting up, and she’s had the baby already, Natasha realizes, Clint is holding it. She means to leave them the moment, but of course Clint spots her, and nudges Laura, who waves Natasha in.

Clint’s eyes are wet, and Laura’s are tired, and the baby’s are enormous and blue. “Congratulations,” Natasha says, because she thinks it’s what you say in these situations. “Cooper,” says Clint, staring into those blue eyes--the baby’s name, Natasha figures, and Laura smiles and says it was her maiden name, and Natasha turns right back out and goes to get everyone chocolate bars before someone suggests she hold the baby.

Later, she drives Clint home for the night, because Laura insisted he sleep in a bed and come back in the morning, and when they pull up to the farmhouse she has to say something.

“I can count,” is what comes out.

“I know,” Clint says, too tired and happy to be curious.

“She was pregnant,” Natasha says. “You let me sleep here with your pregnant wife.”

“Oh,” Clint says. “Yeah.”

“You’re fucking stupid,” Natasha says, tongue prodding toothache. “You better hope that kid takes after Laura.”

“Trust me,” Clint says, “I do.”

 

**iii.**

Clint isn’t surprised Nat knows her way to the farm without him, or that she knows he’s home right now. It’s been years since Clint was surprised Natasha knew anything.

He is, however, a little surprised she’s been shot.

The wound is in her abdomen; it’s not actively bleeding but it’s bandaged tight. If he had to guess, Clint would say Nat did the basic field medicine herself. And then managed to drive herself to him in the middle of nowhere, because Natasha is insane. At this point, that’s not surprising either.

“Hey,” Clint says. Natasha is still belted into the driver’s seat; he came out to meet her after it was pretty clear she wasn’t coming in.

“You want a hand?” he asks, and Natasha nods, so Clint reaches in and undoes her seatbelt, gives her a hand out of the car. She’s walking, but she leans on him.

“You didn’t think about going to a doctor?” Clint asks, and Nat winces, mutters something in Russian.

“Right,” Clint says. “Totally, just what I was thinking.”

He gets Nat up to the guest room with as little gasping and grabbing her side as possible and does his own first aid check. “You wanna tell me what happened?” he asks, calm and curious, and she snaps at him in Russian again, then shakes her head.

“He shot me,” she says, a little dazed, and falls back on the pillows.

“No shit,” Clint tells her, but she’s already halfway to asleep.

Clint takes stock quickly. If Natasha’s missing check-ins, that’s her problem. Lila is happily asleep in her crib. Laura is out picking up Cooper from preschool--actually, no, Laura is calling for him from the front door.

Clint goes and hugs her and whispers “Nat’s upstairs do not tell Cooper she’s injured” as fast as he can. Laura raises an eyebrow but, thankfully, does not say anything that would result in a preschooler jumping up and down on Natasha’s gunshot wound. World-class spy. Nailed it.

Clint figures it’s better to let her sleep it off, so he doesn’t go up and visit Nat again until after dinner. She’s awake when he comes in, half-sitting up in bed--she looks stunned still. Clint goes and sits by her.

“Kids don’t know you’re here,” he says. “Laura can come and visit when you feel up to it.”

“He shot me,” Nat says again, and then more angry Russian muttering.

Clint bites his lip. “You okay, Nat?” he asks. He’s never seen her like this, not even fresh off her handlers.

Nat takes a minute to answer, then--“I’m okay,” she says.

“Who shot you?” Clint asks.

Nat grimaces a little. “Someone who could,” she says.

“Well, it wasn’t me,” Clint says. He’s trying to make her laugh, and it works, but then she sobers.

“You’re not the only good shot out there,” she says, and Clint can tell that’s not all she means, but he wants to cheer her up more than he wants to know what she’s talking about.

“Wow,” Clint says, “you think I’m just good? Maybe I shouldn’t offer to bring you up lasagna if you’re gonna insult my skills like this.”

Natasha’s smile is weak, but it’s there. “Lasagna, please,” she says. “And you can tell the kids I’m here if you want.”

 

**iv.**

She could look for him.

She could go with Steve and Sam, let them think she’s just along for the ride; she could sneak out ahead of them, find him first and bring him in herself or stay out with him; she could be honest with Steve, and he’d welcome her.

Instead she finds herself on Clint’s doorstep, his arms around her tight. “What’s up, Widow?” he says when she’s ready to pull away.

“The going got tough,” she tells him. “I got going.”

Clint smiles his little side smile and lets her in, gets himself an apple and sits on the arm of the couch next to her while she switches from her jacket to the afghan Laura’s mom made.

“I saw you on the news,” Clint says, and Natasha laughs, lightly. “I saw a lot of shit on the news--do I need to start preparing a Daddy-lost-his-job speech?”

Natasha shrugs one shoulder. “I’m sure we can transfer your W-2 over to Stark.”

“Well,” Clint says, “guess it’s better for me to have a bunch of Nazi money than the original owners.”

Natasha sobs out a laugh. It’s such a Clint way of looking at it, but it’s fucking true, in a way--better, after all, that it was her working for them, someone willing to stop them.

Someone able to stop them.

She knew who he was before Steve did, of course. The only shock, really, is that James was his real name all along. She figured it was generic American, some kind of inside joke. But she knew he was alive--on some level, she was prepared for it. And unlike Steve Rogers, Natasha has never found it distracting to fight someone she loves.

This, in the end, is probably why Natasha thinks it’s best if Steve finds him, and not her.

Clint finishes his apple and tosses the core into a trash can--not even the closest one, he’s showing off. Laura won’t let him make trash baskets in front of the kids because it gives them dangerous ideas. Natasha leans her head on his thigh and closes her eyes.

“Yeah,” Clint says. “This one sucks.”

“They all suck,” Natasha murmurs. “But yes. This one is bad.”

The afghan is warm around her shoulders, a little bit itchy where it reaches past her sleeves. The soldier will be someone different when Steve finds him; not the person Steve is looking for, but even less the one Natasha is. Though she supposes he’d find much the same if he looked for them.

“Stay as long as you want,” Clint says, squeezing her shoulder, and gets up, probably to get himself another apple. Sure enough, he comes back with one and one for her. She takes it and turns it around in her hand but doesn’t bite in.

“Clint,” she says, careful, “there’s things I haven’t told you.”

“No shit,” Clint says, and laughs. Natasha laughs too, bitterly.

“Fair point,” she says.

“Nah,” Clint says. “It’s cool.”

“Thanks,” Natasha says. The apple is a Granny Smith. Clint’s favorite. It’s cool against Natasha’s skin.

“Course,” Clint says. There’s a pause while they both eat, munching sounds filling the silence.

“Clint,” Natasha says, again after he’s basketed both their apple cores. “There’s things I want to tell you.”

 

**v.**

When Clint pushes the door open, Nat is already there.

He ignores her, goes to his wife and children, kisses them. Things were dicey, for a minute there--if Clint has a superpower, it’s unearned bravado, but “underwater ultra-prison” stretches even his ability to believe he’s gonna make it out okay. The postmortem can wait--he needs to bury his face in Laura’s hair and convince himself he’s really back with them.

It’s only after Laura’s gone to make tea and Lila’s squirmed out of his grasp that Clint can turn to Natasha.

Nat is hanging back politely, hovering carefully near the window instead of in her usual spot on the couch. Clint is a little curious what she and Laura have been talking about before he got there. He doesn’t blame Laura for letting her in, though--what else was she going to do?

“Still friends, right?” Natasha says, wryly, as he approaches. Clint sighs, rakes a hand through his hair. He’s exhausted.

“I don’t know where Steve went,” he says. Might as well get it out of the way, he’s figuring, but Natasha looks a little shocked.

“That’s not why I’m here,” she says, slowly. “Steve and--well, Steve knows how to get in touch when he’s ready.” She pauses. “And I’m just as much a fugitive as he is.”

Clint blinks at this. “No shit?”

Nat shrugs, and Clint laughs. “So we’re both doing stupid shit when we absolutely don’t have to.”

“What else is new?” Nat asks.

Clint grimaces. “Not much, it seems like,” he says, and sits; Natasha sits next to him, swings her legs up in his lap as Laura arrives with the tea. “No fighting, no biting?” she asks, like she does for the kids, and Natasha bares her teeth as she takes the mug Laura hands her.

They’re silent, for a minute, Natasha and Laura drinking their tea and Clint closing his eyes for a moment, letting his exhaustion be a part of him instead of a burden. He’s spent entirely too much time not on Natasha’s side in the last few years; it feels good to know it’s over, even if that ends up not being true yet again.

“I just wanted to see you,” Natasha says, after she’s set the mug down. “That’s why I came here. No ulterior motive.”

“I don’t believe that,” Clint says, because come on. It’s Natasha.

“Well,” Natasha says, “I did figure Laura stress-baked gingersnaps while you were gone.” Clint rolls his eyes. “Come on,” he says.

Natasha smiles, then goes quiet for a moment. “I hate not knowing whose side I’m on,” she says. “I keep making the same goddamn choice and it never stays made.”

It’s terribly candid, under the circumstances. Clint nods his agreement.

Natasha’s mouth twists. “I always come here,” she says, “when I don’t know who I am.”

Laura stands and squeezes Natasha’s shoulder. “I did stress bake gingersnaps,” she says. “I’ll go get them.”

Clint clasps a hand over Natasha’s ankles on his lap, sighs out the breath he’s been holding all week, all decade.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he tells Natasha. “I’m glad you came here.”

 

**+i.**

God, she should’ve made Steve bring her here before.

Call it a failure of imagination, but now she can’t see him here; she just sees fucking empty land, empty house, empty sky. She doesn’t know why she came here--she doesn’t really know why he came here, for that matter. She can’t see it as a place he lived.

She explores anyway, because she has nothing to lean on right now but old habits, and snooping is her oldest by far.

In the house she finds technology--Wakandan, but it looks like it plays music and maybe makes phone calls. She finds books, a couple old novels, Twilight for some reason. And--her heart lurches--Russian poetry, at the bottom of the stack. Translated, but that doesn’t mean anything; she doubts even that is easy to find in Wakandan libraries.

Outside the house, she finds the goats, one of whom, a brown-and-white patched female, comes right up and nudges her. Almost like a cat, Natasha thinks, startled, and then realizes they must want food. She doesn’t know if that’s normal goat behavior, but she imagines having a war fought on top of you is traumatizing regardless of species. She goes back in the house and tracks down a sack of corn, finds what looks like the goats’ feeding trough. She’s scooping it out, unsure how much to give, when Clint finds her.

“Farm girl,” he says, the ghost of a tease. Fitting, because when she looks up Clint is a ghost of himself. He wouldn’t be here at all if he had children to take care of, Natasha knows, but she almost asks anyway and then cuts herself off--why make him say it out loud.

He does anyway. “All of them,” he says. “And Laura.”

“Fuck,” Natasha says. Clint looks nearly as gone as they are, absolutely broken, and for a moment Natasha feels a sick, nasty rush of envy. Clint is broken, Steve is broken, and here she is feeding James Barnes’s goddamn therapy goats, because she already broke decades ago and she’s fine now.

“Yeah,” Clint says.

“How’d you get here?” Natasha asks, and Clint musters up a shadow of his deadpan. “Stole a plane,” he says. “I knew Steve was based here, he seemed like the person to find, and. There are a lot of planes unattended, right now.”

“Yeah,” Natasha says, softly, because she’s just realized--planes unattended, some of them midair, planes and trucks on the highway and children’s trapeze instructors. As if she didn’t have enough grief to put off for later. The doe bumps her again--she’s in the way of the food. She moves, but she leaves her hand on the doe’s flank for the moment. It’s warm and alive; score one for therapy goats.

“Have you seen Steve?” Natasha asks, careful, and at that Clint sits down in the grass, strings cut, as if he was holding out hope Natasha was going to tell him Steve was just fine, really, would be fighting back in no time.

“He’ll recover,” Natasha says. “With time.” But that’s what she’s really worried about--a non-functional Steve, at least, can’t get the rest of the world destroyed in a desperate bid for suicide-by-heroism. Sobbing into Thor’s hair in the palace is a safe place to keep him, for now. She glances at the house, as if there’s something in it that could tell her what James would’ve done, faced with this Steve--but of course, he wouldn’t have been.

She goes to Clint, and the doe follows her. “There’s no grand plan,” she says. “And all our grand planners are down for the count anyway.” The doe snuffles, checking if Clint’s hair is hay for her to finish her meal with. “But,” she continues, “there’s still work to do.”

She gets up and walks back toward the house, toward the palace if she keeps walking, toward the work to do. She doesn’t look behind to see if Clint’s following, but he is.

**Author's Note:**

> title from my personal buckynat theme song, bob dylan's "shelter from the storm." i've never written 5+1 fic before and i don't think "sad mostly-gen where the other member of your ship doesn't actually appear" is the brief, but what do i know.


End file.
